


this is how it ends (and begins again)

by silversoul_snow



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversoul_snow/pseuds/silversoul_snow
Summary: He's been called a Man Out of Time, and he's accepted the mantle. Maybe it's time for him to live up to it.





	this is how it ends (and begins again)

**Author's Note:**

> not betaed - 4/29/2019

Numb.

 

That’s the only thing that he feels.

 

From the moment he saw Tony lunge for Thanos, Steve knew what was going to happen. Thanos raised his fingers and snapped, but Steve never once took his eyes off Tony. Nothing happened; Tony had made sure of that. But oh god, his heart sank when Tony had raised his own fingers, and with his catchphrase, _‘I am Iron Man_ ,' he snapped.

 

_‘You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.’_

 

Steve had never wanted so badly to _not_ be proven wrong.

 

He had screamed at his body to move, to do something. Anything. If the Hulk could barely handle the power of the Infinity Stones, what chance did a mere human have? _Not a mere human. Tony is never a mere human. He’s more than that._ But the point still stands. Steve had stood frozen, numb as he watched Tony collapsed. Numb as Thanos and his army faded away. Numb as he watched Pepper and Peter and everyone who loved Tony gathered around the dying man.

 

Numb as the light on the armor faded out.

 

"Cap." The low rumble of Thor's voice draws him out of his stupor. Steve looks at the god and belatedly realizes that his cheeks are wet. Is it raining? He looks around the field in confusion. Everything else is dry.

 

“You’re crying.”

 

Oh, so he is. Isn't that weird? Steve hasn't known that you can cry without feeling sad.

 

The kid is crying. The kid that Tony thought he had lost and had gotten back only for a few moments. Pepper is crying. Rhodes is crying. They deserve to cry; they love Tony and Tony loved them back. Steve doesn't think he deserves that privilege, but he's crying anyway.

 

He spares a thought for Tony’s bots. _Oh god,_ Dum-ee and U are never going to know what happened to their creator. Steve doesn’t even know whether they survived the snap. He supposes they did, they aren’t technically living creatures.

 

They have to carry the body. _Carry Tony,_ he amends mentally but being in denial isn’t going to help anyone. He takes a step towards the corpse, and instantly Pepper draws it closer to her. Steve falters. He doesn’t want to take this moment away from her, not when almost everything she has is already gone. But they have to.

 

“Steve.” Thor’s hand on his shoulder steadies him. _Or rigor mortis will set in, and we’ll have to burn both him and the suit,_ he thinks. That would be fitting though, the legacy of Iron Man dying with Tony Stark.

 

"Let me." He nods to Rhodes, and the man stares at him. Steve doesn't know what kind of expression he has on now, but it's enough for Rhodes to nod back solemnly and crouch down next to Pepper, drawing her away from the body gently. The kid stares at him defiantly, _I really should know his name,_ Steve thinks since he has been calling him Queens all this time in his head. _He’s Tony’s kid, I should know him._

 

Part of him wants to ask the kid to move. He’s too young for this, too young to witness the brutality and inhumanity of war and too young to carry the body of a man he loves. But this is the same kid that fought on the battlefield and went up in space with Tony. He was there for Tony when Steve wasn’t. Steve doesn’t have the right to ask him to step aside. Beside, manhood waits for no one.

 

"Want to help me, kid?" He asked. The kid sniffles and wipes his tears away with a dirty hand before nodding resolutely, "Yeah."

 

Steve kneels next to the armor and stares at it. Disabling it seems so final, but he has to do it. _For Tony_ , he thinks and steadies his heart.

 

"Password required," Friday's familiar voice drifts out from the armor. He may be projecting, but the AI's voice carries heartbreak and pain in it.

 

Steve hesitates. He isn't sure what the password is. Rhodes and Pepper may know it, but given the way they are clinging onto each other for dear life, Steve doesn't want to break the moment. He glances at the spider-kid, but he seems just as lost as Steve is.

 

He did know it. Once upon a time. When they were still teammates, still friends, still -

 

It can’t be….

 

Can it?

 

There’s no other option but to try. Steve punches in the string of numbers and holds his breath. With a soft sigh, the armor disables itself and opens. It feels like something is in his throat, and he can't breathe.

 

"Oh, Tony." He closes his eyes for a moment.

 

Steve hasn’t thought that the date of his birthday would still be the password. It isn’t the most secure password but say what you want about Tony Stark, he does have a heart.

 

Steve just hasn’t thought it still belonged to him.

 

He takes a good look at the body and wishes he hasn’t. It's charred and carries the smell of burnt flesh. _Tony must have been in so much pain when he died,_ he thinks.

 

The kid comes over to help Steve remove the armor from the corpse, being very careful to not disturb the body. He's shaking badly, and Steve recognizes the symptoms. The kid’s going into shock. Delayed shock, but still shock.

 

“Hey. Thank you,” he says to the kid once the armor has been removed and sends him off to Pepper and Rhodes.

 

 

 

The procession through the battlefield is quiet. Someone must have spread the word because by the time Steve turns with Tony's body in his arms, everyone has lined up. He steps on ash and tries his best not to think about a time a few years ago when a similar situation had happened. The cold weight in his arms doesn't do anything for his thoughts, and so Steve keeps his eyes ahead of him. The quiet support of the remaining Avengers behind him gives him the strength to carry on.

 

Later on, Steve has no idea how he ends up sitting in the remains of the HQ with an IV drip attached to his arm. All he’s aware is that for one moment, Tony’s body had been in his arm and then it’s gone the next. They had taken the body away to prepare for the funeral. _Who were they,_ he thinks but doesn't have the energy to answer the question. Thor and Bruce sit on his right, with Clint on his left as they watch the surroundings in silence. Ambulances tending to the wounded. Nick Fury and his crew taking charge of the situation. Families reuniting.

 

_His_ family is never coming back.

 

_I didn’t even get a chance to tell Tony that he gave me a home,_ Steve thinks. It isn’t just Tony they had lost. Natasha’s absence is a gaping wound that Steve doesn’t know how to deal with. He doesn’t know if he ever will. She was the first friend he made in this time, and had stood by him through it all.

 

"I should go find Laura and the children," Clint mutters, and Steve nods silently. At least one of them still has a family. It isn't jealousy he feels, nor is it envy. He just doesn’t feel anything at all.

 

_Might be the shock_ , he thinks to himself. _Maybe I’ll feel it later_.

 

He doesn’t.

 

 

 

The funeral is a beautiful and quiet affair. It’s a private one. They’ll hold the public one at some point this week, and Steve has been asked to give a eulogy. He doesn’t think that it should be him and voiced it, but Rhodes had told him gently, “Tony would’ve liked it to be you.” He can’t say no to that.

 

Before the ceremony, Tony's family turns to go inside the house. He must have left them a message; that seems like something Tony would do. Steve turns away from the house. He might have been Tony's family once, but that life doesn't include him anymore. Not since the argument over the accords happened.

 

They place Tony’s first arc reactor on the wreath and pushes it out into the lake. Everyone who has their lives touched by Tony is there. There’s even some kid named Harley that Steve has never seen before. There are many parts of Tony’s life that he hasn’t known about, and he will never get a chance to know them.

 

_We didn’t have a funeral for Natasha_ , he thinks distractedly as he looks at the wreath go. There’s no body for them to cremate or bury. Clint had said that he had passed out after Natasha had let go of his hand, whether it was from shock or from the power of the soul stone, he didn’t know. Once he came to, he was lying in a shallow lake with the soul stone grasped in his hand. Natasha wouldn’t have wanted a funeral anyway. _Scatter my ashes into the ocean and be done with it,_ she would have said.

 

"Steve," Pepper's soft voice draws his attention, and he turns to see her standing on the parlor. She wears the appearance of a grieving widow well, but it will leave traces of scars on her. Her life is never going to be the same.

 

“Steve.” She calls again, and he looks around. There’s no one but him left looking out on the lake. Is the ceremony over? How long has he been spacing out for? “I have something for you.“

 

He's confused but goes silently. Pepper leads him into the house, and on the table lays a familiar Iron Man's helmet. There are two of them. Steve gulps. Pepper takes one in her hands tenderly and runs a thumb over the smooth surface. He feels as if he's intruding on an intimate moment and looks away. Steve still doesn't know why he's been called in.

 

“Tony left a message for you. It’s for your eyes only.” Pepper says, holding the mask for a second longer before holding it out for Steve. He takes it, only because he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“Thank you.” He says.

 

Pepper only smiles at him gently, _he doesn’t deserve that smile. There are a lot of things in this world he doesn’t deserve,_ he thinks. _Like being alive when Tony is dead. It should have been him._ “Feel free to stay as long as you want. Take your time.” She says, before going up the stairs. To Morgan. To Tony’s daughter who’s going to have to grow up without the best dad in the entire universe.

 

Steve doesn’t stay after that.

 

 

 

It's only in the safety of his own room does he then dare to examine the helmet. He's staying in a hotel room for the night. There's nowhere else for him to go. The compound has been destroyed, and well, Clint has offered to put him up for the night, but Steve couldn't do that to him. Not when the archer had finally been reunited with his family. Thor has gone back to New Asgard, something that he has to do before he leaves with the Guardians, he says. He has no idea where Bruce has disappeared to, but presumably, it's to work on the time machine to bring the Infinity stones back. Bucky has gone with Sam, who has also offered him a place to stay, but Steve had declined. He just wants to be by himself.

 

He sits on the edge of his bed, and holds the helmet in his hands, caressing the cold surface. Tony has let him a message, but Steve isn't sure if he can bring himself to listen to it. It feels to final to hear Tony say goodbye. He wants to live in this numb state for a while longer.

 

“Oh Tony,” he mutters.

 

“Identification received. System processing.” The helmet replies back. Steve’s eyes widened. “Identification verified: Steve Grant Rogers. Relaying message.”

 

“Nononono. No-“ Steve chokes out. He isn’t ready for this.

 

Too late.

 

A hologram is projected by the helmet, and suddenly there is an image of Tony Stark sitting in front of him. Steve closes his eyes, before immediately opening them again. He doesn't know whether this is a one-time message or not, and if it was, he wants to sear every moment of it into his memory.

 

"Hey, Steve." Tony's image flickers for a moment before stabilizing. "If you see this, it means I'm dead. Well, if I'm not, stop this message at once. Don't go poking around my stuff, you bad boy." He wags a finger and smirks.

 

Steve drinks in the smirk like a thirsty man.

 

"But if I'm dead, it means that something went wrong with the Time Heist tomorrow. Something very wrong. Just- Just in case you come back, and I don't, even the possibilities of that happening are small. Very small. Tiny teeny small. But still there and still possible. And you know me, crazed and paranoid.”

 

“No, never.” Steve shakes his head, even though he knows that there’s no one else to see him.

 

“Where to start?” Tony breathes out heavily as he stares straight at Steve. “I've had time to think. Two years after you left, 21 days in outer space, and then five years on a farm. To go over the what-ifs and what-not, and whether us tearing each other throats out was inevitable. Seven years later, I still don’t have an answer.”

 

“But I think we can both agree that there’s blame to share. Pepper says that communication is the key to a strong relationship, but you know us, Cap,” Tony laughed bitterly. “We were never good at that, were we?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Steve tells the recording.

 

"I bet you're sorry." Tony smiled tiredly. "I'm sorry too, for what it's worth. Although I don't think my word means much to you now. I do wish we could have done things differently, but my point still stands. I needed you, but you weren't there. Well, I guess you needed me too, and I wasn't there for you."

 

Silence falls between them, and Tony hold his slumped over pose for so long that Steve thought the recording ended.

 

“I forgive you. God knows I’ve forgiven you the minute you left. But when I saw you again, Steve you have to understand that I couldn’t go through that pain again. I didn’t want to, and I can’t.”

 

Steve understands. He does, and that’s why he had stood there five years ago and let Tony lash out at him. Tony needed to get it out of his system, and Steve needed to hear it. 

 

"But it's always been you, Steve Grant Rogers." Tony chuckles exhaustedly. "Always you. I love you." He closes his eyes as if it pains him to say that out loud. "I wish I didn't, and heaven knows I've tried to stop loving you, Steve, but I can't. I love you so much sometimes it hurts to even hear your name. I've often wondered if I'd die from loving you instead of going down in battle."

 

Steve shuts his eyes. Even when they were back together before the Accords incident happened, they had never said ‘I love you' to each other. And oh, how much does Steve regret it now.

 

Tony shifts uneasily in his seat and glances somewhere away from the camera. "It's six hours to Time Heist, and well, you don't know how happy I am to be able to fight next to you again. I can only hope… hope that nothing goes wrong, so in the very least I get to say this to your face. And if I don't… well…"

 

A heavy breath is drawn, and Tony looks straight back into the camera, "I love you, and I hope you're alive to hear that.

 

Steve hears it alright. He hears Tony saying it to him, but Tony will never get to hear Steve say it back to him. And that's what breaks his heart.

 

The grief hits in a huge wave, and the tears start to fall.

 

 

 

Hours later, when Steve has cried himself to sleep and wakes up with dried tear tracks on his face, he knows what he has to do.

 

He's been called a Man Out of Time, and he's accepted the mantel. Maybe it's time for him to live up to it.

 

 

 

"Are you sure you don't want anyone to come with you?" Bruce asks as he powers up the time machine. Steve suits up and smiles reassuringly. "It's alright, I have to be the one to do this."

 

He has to be the one because he’s not coming back. There’s nothing else tying him back here. Bucky will be fine, he has Sam and the others to look out for him. Steve has left everything that he has to his best friend. He’ll be okay. So will Bruce. Professor Hulk is a favorite amongst the children these days. Thor is gone, left hours ago, and Clint is with his family. The kid, Peter, he eventually finds out, has his Aunt May and his friends.

 

There’s nothing else for Steve in this time. Both Tony and Natasha are gone.

 

It’s a selfish thing, but Steve thinks after everything, he’s allowed to be selfish. Just this once. The universe owes him this after taking everything he loves away from him.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” He tells Bucky.

 

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” Bucky replies and draws him into a hug. “Go get him, Stevie. Get the happy ending you deserve. Because you do.” He whispers.

 

The serious tone in Bucky’s voice stops Steve from arguing. Maybe… Maybe he could let himself believe that he deserves it.

 

He pulls away and smiles, before stepping up to the time machine. He picks up Mjolnir, _gotta return that to Asgard_ , he thinks, _Thor will be missing it,_ and the case that contains the Infinity Stones.

 

“I’m ready.” He tells Bruce.

 

“See you in five seconds,” Bruce replies.

 

_You won’t,_ Steve thinks _. But it’s okay._

 

The light flairs up around him, and Steve’s ready this time.

 

There’s somewhere he has to be.

 

Someone he has to find.

 

And he has all of time to do it.


End file.
